1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for and a method of splicing exposed photographic films so as to shape the spliced photographic films in the form of rolls.
2. Description of the Related Art
Negative films, which a user desires to develop, have heretofore been sorted according to user's ordering instructions. The ordering instructions include frame size, enlargement size, the kind of surface of printing paper, etc.
The sorted photographic films are respectively spliced and loaded into a film processor and a printer in the form of rolls. Thus, the film processor can continuously develop the photographic films. Further, since the photographic films have been sorted according to the ordering instructions, the printer can also print successively the photographic films under the same conditions without effecting processes such as a change in position of a mask of a negative carrier, a change in enlargement size and a change in printing paper or the like.
However, an operation for sorting the photographic films according to the ordering instructions is manually carried out while an operator is looking at the ordering instructions described in an order column of each envelope. Therefore, a great deal of labor and time are required.
That is, an operation for winding each negative film in the form of a roll is automatically performed. Since, however, a sorting operation is required during a step prior to the winding process, the efficiency of work is reduced.
As a reference technique, a proposal has been made which compares photographing frame sizes of front-to-rear portions as seen from a spliced portion of negative films after the negative films have been first spliced together at random before development, cut the combined photographic film if the frame sizes do not coincide with each other and then resplice the photographic films.
It has also been proposed that envelopes, which have been arranged in order of respective negative films spliced at random, are rearranged based on ordering instructions employed upon the sorting of the negative films so as to be the same as the order of the respliced respective negative films (see Japanese Patent Application Publication Nos. 58-25262 and 1-55448).